London, Thanasis Gavos

Seasons of fires which will be more destructive, i.e. longer in duration, with a more intense thermal load and more difficult to control, provide for prone zones such as Greece, Portugal, Spain and France British environmentalists.

They predict that this type of catastrophic fires will begin to occur more often in other countries and areas, such as Germany and Polandbut even the Arctic, swamps or rainforests.

UK Met Office climatologist Sandel Burton said in a briefing that fires in areas that are not “adapted” to this type of phenomenon will have a proportionally greater impact.

He also emphasized that climate warming has created more favorable conditions for destructive fires, particularly referring to hot conditions during the night that favor rekindling.

Land surface climate modeler at the UK Center for Ecology and Hydrology Douglas Kelly added: “The important thing to note is that climate change can affect ignition, drought and weather. So it has a big influence on critical conditions for fires to occur and how they spread.”

British scientists note, however, that even if climate change were to be limited, this would not prevent large fires. They emphasized the importance of proper soil preparation and avoiding hazardous activities during hot weather, such as barbecuing on vegetated land.

The Financial Times, highlighting these predictions, also reports that according to the European land change observation service Copernicus, this year’s emissions from wildfires worldwide they are already the third highest on record.

As far as Greece is concerned, this year’s pollutants from the fires have risen in total until August to 2 million tons of carbon dioxide. 27% of this year’s global fire pollution comes from Canada, with over 350 million tons of carbon dioxide.

It is noted that the United Nations Environment Program predicts that by 2100 extreme fire events could increase by 50% worldwide.